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Friday, August 26, 2011

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... → Learn More

We’re big fans of Kickstarter around here, but for every good project that gets its much deserved funding, there are innumerable lesser ideas trapped in financial limbo. Today’s case in point: the Scandy, a telescoping clamp that promises to turn your smartphone into a scanner.

The idea behind the Scandy is that since your smartphone has a fairly decent camera mounted on its rear end, it would make a half-decent scanner if you managed to hold it just right. Rather than leave that onus on the user, the Scandy clamps onto the nearest table and allows you to adjust its height to get the entire document in view.

This, in short, is completely ridiculous. The time necessary to whip out a Scandy, bolt it onto a desk and adjust the height would completely eclipse the time it would take to snap a few pictures and pick out the best one. Maybe there’s some untapped market out there that really wants to lug around a $40 set of plastic tubes in order to take pictures of paperwork, but with only 13 backers at time of writing, to call it a niche market would be an understatement.

John says it could be useful for library researchers who don’t want to spend 10 cents a copy at the old biblioteca, but seriously? Plus, wouldn’t this ruin the reading table’s finish?

Alas, I could be completely wrong (note: I’m not), and this could be the next must-have accessory for the road warrior in your life. The Scandy is compatible with all smartphones, mostly because you’re expected to just rest your phone on top of it and get snapping. If the $40 base model doesn’t strike your fancy, the limited edition model (plus capacitive stylus!) can be yours if you pledge $100, and a $500 donation nabs you the laser-engraved Signature Edition.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Greg Kumparak is the editor of MobileCrunch.com, a mobile industry blog within the TechCrunch Network. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008. Greg was born in the outskirts of San Jose, CA, and now lives in the East Bay. → Learn More

This shot comes from MacRumors forum-goer guigsh, and has been blasting off around the blogs all morning. Guigsh claims that he had hands-on with the device for “only 2 minutes” with “pictures forbidden”, all taking place “in the office of a French operator.”

Now, on the upside: this shot fits well enough with some of the rumors we’ve been hearing for so long: Slimmer? Yep. Smaller bezel around the display? Sure. But what about the tapered back? Or the more pronounced rounded edges? Ehhhh — slightly so, but that could be side effect of stretching/distorting in Photoshop.

Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure that’s whats going on here. Stare at the image for a minute or two, and stuff just starts to seem.. off. Then you start to notice it: why is his index finger so long? Why is the ear piece hole gaping like that? Why the heck is he holding it like that? The longer you look at it, the more it looks like a stretched out iPhone 4 being held in such a way to minimize obvious stretching of the fingers.

Forum hero roow110 set out to recreate the shot with his iPhone 4 and a dash of Photoshop distortion. Here is his “literally 30 second Photoshop job” (Note for clarity: The photo below is a confirmed fake attempting to recreate the shot above so as to debunk it):

Looks like this is myth is busted to me. What do you think?

(Update: Myth double-busted! Giz found that this image was floating around a full day before Guigsh posted it as his own, and was originally captioned (in French) with “A picture like this could drive some sites crazy…”)

Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer,...

Biggs is the editor of TechCrunch Gadgets. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. → Learn More

Like Kramer and Newman driving the mail truck into Michigan to make a profit on bottle can returns, Chinese smugglers shot an arrow over the border between the mainland and Hong Kong connected to a rope. They then zipped down a collection of iPads and iPhones, hoping to make a profit on the tax differences between the two areas.

Gizchina is reporting that the smugglers shot the arrow from a high-rise using a crossbow in Shenzhen and hit a small house in Hong Kong, across the Sha Tau Kok river. They then sent boxes and boxes of gear over the border in the dead of night until authorities spotted boxes of electronics flying through the air into Hong Kong on a 300 meter line (my emphasis).

They nabbed $46,000 worth of gear although there is no telling how much had already gone unnoticed.

Biggs is the editor of TechCrunch Gadgets. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. → Learn More

The Japanese version of iOS 5 will have a special notifications widget: a setting to turn on instant messages from Japan’s earthquake early warning system. The system is so sensitive that it could reduce your battery life as it polls the warning servers constantly.

iOS 5′s new notifications system uses the iPhone’s old notifications but places it in an easy-to-read, lock-screen based environment that holds the last few messages form various apps. Presumably this early warning system will be considerably more noticeable than a badge on the lock or notifications screen. Apple’s Steve Jobs sent a note and assistance during the major Earthquake in March offering “time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you.”

Biggs is the editor of TechCrunch Gadgets. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. → Learn More

Are you friends with your local barkeep, barista, or leather salesman? We&Co is a way to let them know you care. This iPhone app, launched on July 15, allows businesses to register their employees and then visitors can rate those employees (with an emphasis on positive criticism) and add them to your “favorite people” collection. Think of it as Yelp with considerably more granularity.

I suppose the question then is “Why?” Why use an app when you can thank them yourself? Well, presumably, the aggregate score will encourage others to frequent the employee’s place of business, thereby gaining them more tips and potential creepy stalkers. It also puts a name to the faces you see every day at your local eateries, drinkeries, and provisionaries.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, the small company’s technology is based on work by founder Marc Mathieu’s company, BeDo. You sign in with Twitter, Facebook, or a distinct We&Co account. The app picks up current locations (and employees) and allows you to add locations and employees to various locations. You then select the employee in question and give them a high five or whatever, virtually.

The system allows you to follow your favorite employees (bartenders, for example, or hair dressers) from location to location and employers could choose to reward you for your ratings.

As a misanthrope, I’m slightly unnerved at the idea of actively hunting down and thanking specific employees at a place of business and I would certainly rather thank them with a big tip than a button tap. That said, FSM bless these Southern kids for trying to put inject little kindness into the glum, soulless ritual of buying coffee or tires. I worry that this won’t get used often enough to warrant much of a glowing review, but as it stands the idea is solid and the app works, so high five, We&Co.

Dr. Serkan Toto currently works as the first and only Asia-based writer for the TechCrunch network, mainly covering Japan-related technology and web companies for TechCrunch, CrunchGear and MobileCrunch. Serkan also works full-time as an independent web and mobile industry consultant with a focus on the Japanese market. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. Serkan... → Learn More

Just last week, Hitachi decided to pull the plug on their domestic TV production business by year-end, but that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t go out with a bang. A total of six Hitachi Wooo TVs were announced [JP] in Japan today, with the 50-inch 3D model P50-GP08 stealing the show.

The plasma TV might very well be Hitachi’s last self-produced flagship model, and a look at the spec list reveals this is actually regrettable:

Biggs is the editor of TechCrunch Gadgets. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. → Learn More

A new app by Carnegie Mellon researchers Anthony Tomasic and John Zimmerman in conjunction with the University of Buffalo, allows bus riders to track their current location while riding the bus and, in turn, share this information with people who are still waiting, thereby creating a more complete map and schedule of bus routes and times. The app, Tiramisu, is free but, sadly, it only works in Pittsburgh right now.

The app requires that the rider activate the tracker in order to see when the next bus is due to arrive as well as its current “fullness” which can be registered by riders. When he or she boards, the app sends the bus’ location to the main server so other riders can tell where that particular bus is and when it will arrive. Obviously this requires the riders to actually care about their fellow humans, so the utility is therefore limited.

Presumably this same data can be used by the city or county transit authorities to improve travel times and inform riders of slow busses. It allows cash-strapped transit systems to add GPS functionality to their lines, even if it’s crowd-sourced.

“While better funded transit systems, such as those in Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco, can afford to make GPS-based information available to riders in real-time, the Allegheny County system is under tremendous budget pressure,” Steinfeld said. “Under such circumstances, a free, crowdsourced system such as Tiramisu offers an important alternative.”

Google, IBM, and CMU’s Traffic21 initiative, among others, all sponsored the project.

So whether you’re a mother with your kids or a guy with his date, this app could, potentially prevent you from getting mad and/or late.